SAFETYEducation

Summer 2007ISSN 0459-2034

Running risks

Contents

SAFETY Education Summer 2007 1

Inside this issue...

Managing Editor Janice Cave

Editorial ConsultantJim Barrow

Occupational Safety AdviserRoger Bibbings

Risk Education AdviserJenny McWhirter

© Published termly by RoSPA EnterprisesLimited - a wholly owned subsidiary of The Royal Society for the Prevention ofAccidents.

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News 2Stars back Bike It

PSHE 3New association

Resources 5First aid in schools

Risk 6Why safety education?

Congress 9Children and road safety

News extra 11Safe as houses

LASER 12More sign up

2 SAFETY Education Summer 2007

News

I Cash help to cut deaths

I Honoured

I Stars come out to back Bike It

Congratulations to MaggieSims who was awarded theMBE in the New Year HonoursList for services to healthcare.Maggie is senior health pro-motion specialist with SouthGloucestershire Primary CareTrust.

She is also well known ininjury prevention circles forher work as a member ofRoSPA's National HomeSafety Committee and theLASER Accreditation steeringgroup.

Young motorists are to begiven help with the cost ofadvanced driver training in aneffort to cut the number ofroad deaths in Scotland. TheScottish Executive is to pro-vide funding towards thescheme.

The north east has thehighest fatal accident rates inScotland for drivers aged 17to 25. A total of 62 peopledied on the region's roadslast year.

The executive is funding asix-month pilot in the Moray,Aberdeen and Aberdeenshireareas.

It will provide half the costof advanced driver training.

When this is added to local

authority funding already onoffer, that means a £150course could cost as little as£15.

The executive said it wasobvious that road safety mes-sages, particularly amongyoung people, still neededto be heard.

Transport Minister TavishScott said there were a num-ber of factors behind thedeath toll, including high-powered cars and youngdrivers' lack of experience.

He said the additional driv-ing test would push youngdrivers to improve their stan-dard - and could lead tocheaper car insurance.

"We hope that insurance

Pupils in Bike It schoolsacross England had a chanceon Valentine’s Day’s to showhow passionate they feltabout cycling with special 'Ilove my bike' events inFebruary, thanks to moneyraised recently by top popband the Scissor Sisters.

School children were given'I love my bike' goodies likebike bells, stickers andposters to help celebrate theaction day or week.

The Scissor Sisters (right)raised £1,300 for Bike It, a na-tional project run by sustain-able transport charity Sus-trans, at a recent gig afterhearing of its success inencouraging children to cycleto school.

The project raised to 10 percent the average levels of cy-cling in Bike It schools com-pared to the national averageof less than 2 per cent.

A whole range of activities

took place in Bike It schoolsup and down the countryfrom 'love your bike' mainte-nance sessions where pupilsdecorated or 'bling theirbikes' as well as making themroad safe, to health work-shops where pupils testedtheir heart rates before andafter pedalling to see how cycling gets pulses racing.

There were also classroomsessions where children com-pleted the sentence 'I love mybike because...', wrote an odeto their wheels, or discussedhow cycling is helping themto love the planet. Somepupils also learnt to love andlook after themselves withadvice on how to be seen andbe safe.

Mike Madin, Sustrans'Bike It manager, said: "We'dlike to say a big thank you tothe Scissor Sisters for themoney they raised for Bike It.It has meant we could dosomething special aroundValentine’s Day so the pupilscould show how much theylove cycling to school. Thegive-aways, prizes and activ-ities acted as an extra incen-tive to enourage Bike Itschool children to cycle ineven more."

companies, in collaborationwith running this kind ofcourse, can indeed providethat kind of incentive," he toldBBC Radio Scotland's GoodMorning Scotland pro-gramme.

"I think there's a really pow-erful incentive - not just forGovernment and local gov-ernment but for drivers them-selves - to look at standards,look at what's happening onour roads and concentrate onmeasures that can improvethat.

"I think the use of this kindof Pass Plus scheme, whichhas worked in other parts ofthe country, must be a stepforward."

SAFETY Education Summer 2007 3

News

I Launchof PSHEbody

I Schools provide 700 entries

A new subject associationhas been launched to cham-pion the quality of teachingand learning that can have abig impact on the health andwell-being of children andyoung people. SchoolsMinister Andrew Adonislaunched the new Personal,Social and Health Education(PSHE) association at a re-ception at the House ofLords.

Andrew Adonis said: "Highquality PSHE provision is avital means of tackling impor-tant problems includingchildhood obesity, teenagepregnancy and alcohol abuse.

"But PSHE is also wherechildren and young peoplediscover ways of enrichingtheir lives through healthyeating and exercise, buildingpositive personal relation-ships and becoming active intheir communities."

He said that employers areincreasingly emphasising thevalue of young people learn-ing "soft skills" such as theability to relate to colleaguesand customers.

The Minister added:"Among its many functions, Ienvisage the PSHE associa-tion supporting the profes-sional development of practi-tioners, building effectivenetworks of subject expertsand spreading best practice."

With more than 1,000members, the new associa-tion's website has alreadyprovided a readily accessibleresource available to anyoneinvolved in PSHE.

PSHE is considered an im-portant subject for preparingchildren and young peoplefor adult life. In March theQualifications and Curri-culum Authority revealed akey role for PSHE in their newproposed secondary curricu-lum.

All schools and colleges inthe Gwent region were invit-ed to enter the Christmasanti drink drive poster com-petition and more than 700entries were received for thisyear’s event. Josh Park ofDuffyn High School andThomas Giles of Glanhowy

Primary School were thesenior and junior winners re-spectively.

The popular competitionhas been running for manyyears in Gwent, and is or-ganised jointly by CapitaSymonds Road Safety Teamand Heddlu Gwent Police.

Recently it became an all-Wales contest with the over-all winning poster beingprinted and widely circulat-ed. This year the entry, pic-tured at the bottom of thepage, by the senior winner,Josh Park, was the chosenposter.

4 SAFETY Education Summer 2007

News

I Drama aims at young drivers

I Packs promote week

Students from Lancaster andMorecambe College wit-nessed a ‘real-life’ simulationof a high speed crash involv-ing five young friends whohave been drinking.The hard-hitting educational dramatook place in front of 400 newand potential drivers at thecollege.

The scene of a smashed carand blood-spattered actorsfrom the college’s media de-partment was attended by theemergency services. At theend there was a short speechfrom the parents of 22 yearold Matthew Hannon wholost his life racing his caragainst a friend in January2006.

The event was conceivedby Lancaster District AlcoholPartnership and is funded byLancashire District LocalStrategic Partnership, NorthLancashire Health andLancashire Partnership forRoad Safety. It aimed to givethe youngsters a shockingand lasting understanding ofthe full consequences ofdrink driving and other irre-sponsible behaviour on theroads.

To promote Child SafetyWeek (June 18-24), organis-ers of the week ChildAccident Prevention Trust isoffering free resource packsto people working with chil-dren, young people and fami-lies.

Aimed at health practition-ers, teachers, childminders,out-of-school organisers, com-munity workers and others re-sponsible for children’s safety,the pack contains an ideasbooklet – full of facts, activityideas, contacts, quizzes andcompetitions – designed toact as a launch-pad for localChild Safety Week activities,plus a colourful poster to helpraise awareness about theweek.

The theme for Child SafetyWeek 2007 is ‘Safer children,healthier lives. Pass it on’.

Katrina Phillips, chief execu-tive of the Child AccidentPrevention Trust, explains:“Child accident preventionisn’t about wrapping childrenup in cotton wool or stoppingthem from doing things. It’sabout giving children, youngpeople, parents and carersthe knowledge and skills theyneed to prevent serious in-juries, and create environ-ments where they can be ac-tive. We need the help ofeveryone working with fami-lies to ‘pass on’ these safetymessages.”

To order a free Child SafetyWeek resource pack:

• Join the Child AccidentPrevention Trust’s mailing

list via its websitewww.capt.org.uk

• Send an A4 stamped ad-dressed envelope (60p) toChild Safety Week ResourcePack, Child AccidentPrevention Trust, 22-26Farringdon Lane, LondonEC1R 3AJ.

• Call CAPT on 09065 151 436(calls to this number cost£1.50 per minute from BTlandlines; calls from mo-biles and some other net-works may be higher).

Copies of the resource packare also available in bulk –contact irene.mitchell@capt.org.uk for more information.

SAFETY Education Summer 2007 5

Resources

I First aid goesinto schools

I Guiding teachers

The British Red Cross haslaunched a first aid educationkit for teachers to enable firstaid training in schools.

The resource has been spe-cially designed to allowteachers without any knowl-edge of the subject to teachall the key life-saving tech-niques. It has been producedas part of the Red Cross' Life.Live it. campaign which aimsto help young people learnfirst aid. In an effort to reachthousands of children withsome basic first aid knowl-edge, the British Red Cross isgiving free resources toschools.

The kit is for educatorsworking with 11-14 year oldsas part of the PHSE curricu-lum. Topics include question-ing why we should learn firstaid, through to CPR and therecovery position.

The kit includes an interac-tive CD ROM with step-by-step guidance and video clipsof all the key techniques al-lowing teachers without anyexperience of first aid to de-liver the subject.

It has also been designed tominimize the amount of les-son planning for teacherswho can rely on the pre-pre-pared material if they wish. Arange of flexible lesson plansallows teachers to deliversessions lasting an hour, or toapproach the subject in moredepth. Posters, bandages aswell as a mannequin are in-cluded in the kits for practicalactivities.

Joe Mulligan, head of firstaid, at the British Red Cross,said: "We want to enableschools to teach first aid. Thebasics can be easily taughtand don't take young peoplelong to learn. That's whywe've produced a resource

which is so flexible and in-cludes step-by-step guidancefor those without any knowl-edge of the subject."

As part of the charity'scommitment to first aid edu-cation it will be distributingfree kits to 500 schools acrossthe UK. In addition, on thelaunch date, every secondaryschool received a freeCDROM sampler which in-cluded two lessons, as wellas all of the supporting re-sources and video clips.

Mr Mulligan said: "Our aimis to get the learning outthere and equip children withthe skills and knowledge torespond to an accident. Onaverage three million peopleattend A&E with injurieswhich could have beenhelped with first aid. Weknow simple skills such asknowing how to open an air-way or control a bleed can bevital after an accident or in-jury."

To support educators deliv-ering first aid education anonline forum is being hostedby the Red Cross to enablethem to share tips and bestpractice. The Red Cross is alsorunning a forum for students,moderated by other youngpeople, to allow them to dis-cuss their experiences oflearning and using first aid.Both forums can be accessedat www.lifeliveit.org

The first aid education kitcosts £120 and can be pur-chased by calling 0800 7311663 or online at www.red-cross.org.uk/shop

Guide Dogs has launched itscitizenship packs – on-lineeducation resources forteachers in nurseries, primaryand secondary schools (andschools teaching the Scottishcurriculum at secondarylevel).

Designed to support – anddirectly linked to – the nation-al citizenship curriculum, thepacks provide practical andenjoyable tasks, helping tomake learning interesting foryoung people.

Lesson plans and resourcesare prepared in detail forteachers. The content is writ-ten to aid the personal, socialand emotional developmentof youngsters; from commu-nication skills to languageand literature. Young peopleare encouraged to empathisewith those who are blind orpartially sighted, value theirown vision, gain a basic un-derstanding of eye care, andunderstand the work of GuideDogs.

The packs also give stu-dents the chance to design asafe street environment,using their understanding ofsight loss to make a real dif-ference to the lives of visuallyimpaired people.

Advertising boards andoverhanging hedges, scaf-folding and wheelie bins;these hazards all appear onmany local streets. The chal-lenge for young people is toconsider a real pedestrian en-vironment, and as a classproject, propose the re-posi-

tioning or preventing of thesehazards, so that people withsight loss don’t keep bump-ing into obstacles every timethey walk along the pave-ment.

There are no ‘cash asks’from Guide Dogs, but the cit-izenship packs give schoolsthe chance to sign-up to afundraising event – with achance to make money forschool funds as well as chari-ty – while learning about eyecare. Shades day is all aboutdonning sunglasses – lookinglike the stars – while under-standing why it’s important toprotect our eyes from harmfulsunrays. To find out moreabout shades day 2007 – takingplace on 29 June – log-on towww.shadesday.org.uk

The citizenship packs are afree education resource,which can be downloaded bylogging-on to www.guide-dogs .org .uk / c i t i zensh ipRegister to access the packs.

erate like that inour day to daylives.

Often wemake judge-ments intuitive-ly and uncon-sciously whentaking care indifferent set-tings or we baseour decisions onour own experi-ence, on ourfeelings and oni n f o r m a t i o nwhich is easilyavailable to us,for examplethrough themedia. We aremore likely to rate somethingas risky if the possible conse-quence is very severe, even ifthat outcome is very unlikelyor delayed, while we under-estimate the familiar risks wetake everyday, such as driv-ing, particularly if we feel incontrol and we derive benefitfrom the activity.

While it is understandablethat we all assess risk differ-ently, important decisions aremade on the basis of our as-sessment of risk – whether to

6 SAFETY Education Summer 2007

Risk

Why safety and risk education?Jenny McWhirter explains why there isa need to teach about safety and risk

Traditionally safety educationin schools has been a key as-pect of the Personal Socialand Health Education (PSHE)Curriculum. In Key Stages 1and 2 the focus may be onroad or home safety and inKey Stages 3 and 4 personalsafety and road safety mayfeature strongly, linked per-haps to alcohol educationand driving.

Accident statistics are alsooften quoted as an importantjustification for safety educa-tion in schools. In the UKmore young people die in ac-cidents than from any othersingle cause.

In 2002 405,000 children inthe UK had accidents at homewhich necessitated treatmentat hospital. While most acci-dents in childhood are not se-vere many of those injuriescan lead to a lifetime of dis-ability. In 2004 in the UK 275young people aged 0-14 died

in accidents. Although generally the UK

has a good record in injuryprevention, fatal/ serious ac-cidents to young people inthe workplace are increasing.

Government policy offersopportunities and support forschools to focus on safety ed-ucation:

In 2001 the DfES publishedguidance on safety education.

Curriculum 2000 includes aPSHE framework which in-cludes safety and risk educa-tion and includes health andsafety as part of the generalteaching requirement for allteachers

Keeping safe is a strand inthe Green Paper Every ChildMatters and the NationalHealthy Schools Programmeincludes PSHE as one of four

key areas that must be ad-dressed if a school is to gainaccreditation.

Preparation for work expe-rience offers the chance forchildren and young people tolearn about health and safetyat work.

In addition to all this theQCA has published units ofwork to help teachers deliverPSHE, provided end of KeyStage statements and as-sessment guidance to helpschools manage PSHE.

Why risk education?The concept of risk under-

pins all aspects of PSHE.Whether we are consideringdrug education, sexual healthor road safety, children andyoung people are beingasked to recognise what cancause harm (hazards), assessrisk (the probability andseverity of harm) and explainhow to control risks to them-selves and others in familiarand unfamiliar environments.

Good practice in safety ed-ucation requires us to “teachsafety AND teach safely”.However, recent research bythe Health and SafetyLaboratory suggests thatteachers focus more on“teaching safely” and less onhelping their pupils and stu-dents gain understandingand experience of the risk as-sessment process as de-scribed in the general teach-ing requirement. Why is this?

One reason may be thatteachers, like most membersof the public, don't under-stand risk in the same waythat health and safety profes-sionals do. The risk assess-ment process – hazard recog-nition, risk assessment andrisk control is essentially a ra-tional technical model andmost of us simply do not op-

SAFETY Education Summer 2007 7

Risk

education?

drive to a meeting or take thetrain, whether to invest infencing to keep people awayfrom cliff edges or accept thatthere will be rare but fatal ac-cidents – so it’s important thatthose decisions are madesystematically and on thebest available information.

The risk assessmentprocess begins with recognis-ing hazards. So what is a haz-ard? A hazard is somethingwhich might cause harm.Some hazards are obvious

because they are objects –ladders, worn carpets, gardenponds, are all hazards. Otherhazards are only apparent be-cause of the effect they haveon something else– for exam-ple bottles of chemicals orfood which has not beenstored correctly can becomehazardous. Other hazards areforms of behaviour like vio-lence or bullying. And behav-iours like neglect or inatten-tion can increase the potentialof hazards to cause harm.

How can we assessrisk?

Risks can range from “intol-erable” to “trivial”. Risk ismade up of two components– probability and conse-quence. Very often we focusmost on the negative conse-quences or severity of harm,but we should always bear inmind that many activitieswhich are potentially haz-ardous are also well con-trolled so the level of risk isactually quite low.

We also have to rememberthat things or activities whichare hazardous also have thepotential to benefit people aswell as harm them. A goodeveryday example would beelectricity in the home.

So when we make a risk as-sessment we are weighing uptwo complex bits of informa-tion – what might happen andwhat is the probability thatthe various consequenceswill actually occur.

Risk assessment gets evenmore complicated when wethink about who might be af-fected – is the risk for the in-dividual only or for other peo-ple? For example, if a child ofschool age has an accident aparent may have to stay awayfrom work to look after them.This could affect the family fi-nances.

We also need to ask whatother factors might affect the

likelihood or the outcome.There are health risks associ-ated with drinking alcohol,but the risks change if we alsodrive a car when we havebeen drinking.

Finally we have to recog-nise that the level of risk as-sociated with many hazardsis affected by our experienceof that hazard and the envi-ronment. A child may learn tolook both ways before cross-ing a road, but does she alsoknow that she should do thisin a car park? So we have totake into account the unfamil-iarity of the environment andthe possibility of some un-known or unforeseen hazardswhen assessing risk.

Of course we cannot andshould not expect theyoungest children in schoolto be able to take responsibil-ity for formal risk assess-ment. However, research sug-gests that as they mature chil-dren and young people areincreasingly capable of con-tributing to structured risk as-sessments.

Practitioners tell us thatwhere schools have involvedchildren in assessing risk andsetting school safety rules,

the children are both more like-ly to comply with the rules andcontribute to enforcing them.

Schools have a statutoryduty to take all reasonablypracticable steps to ensurethe safety of pupils and staffon school premises and whentaking pupils off site. How-ever, it is also vital to sharewith them the skills of recog-nising hazards, assessingrisks and taking steps to con-trol risk. Otherwise whenyoung people gain greater in-dependence from parentsand teachers and move on tounfamiliar environments suchas the workplace, they arelikely to have accidents andinjuries .

More generally, under-standing risk is all about help-ing young people to makesound judgements when cop-ing with uncertainty. It is animportant life-skill which theycan take with them into adultlife.

See the next page for an ex-ample of an activity whichcould help pupils to under-stand how risk assessmentcan help them to keep safe ina familiar environment: theclassroom.

8 SAFETY Education Summer 2007

Photocopy

• Pupils will be able to recognise some familiar hazards, assess the level of risk and explain how the risks canbe controlled.

• Pupils will be able to recognise where the risks associated with some hazards have been controlled.• Pupils will be able to carry out a simple risk assessment in a different but familiar environment.

Ask the pupils if they know what is meant by the word “hazard”. Collect up their answers and display the following definition.

A hazard is something which might cause harm. Some hazards are obvious because they are objects or situations– cliff edges, hot liquids, moving vehicles, broken glass, deep water are all hazards. Other hazards are only apparentbecause of the effect they can have on something else– for example food which has not been stored correctly canbecome hazardous. Worn parts in machines can cause accidents. Plastic bags can suffocate. Other hazards areforms of behaviour. So bullying and neglect are all hazards because they have potential to cause harm.

Invite the pupils to look around the room. What objects could be hazards? Examples might be back packs,chairs, trailing wires. These are all trip hazards – people might trip and fall. What might be the consequence ofa fall in the classroom? Collect up the pupils” responses. These might include:

Nothing A graze or bruise A head injuryA twisted muscle Looking or feeling silly

Ask the pupils if they can decide which of these outcomes is The most severe? The most likely?

Based on both of these factors, which of the different trip hazards is the most risky? Who is most at risk? Are somepeople more at risk of tripping than others? What could be done to reduce the risk to everyone in the room?

Explain to the pupils that what they have done is take part in a risk assessment. Risk assessment is somethingwe do every day although we usually don't stop and think about it the way they have in this activity.

Now ask the pupils to look around the room again.

Are there any hazards which have been controlled? An example might be the use of a toughened glass panelin a classroom door, or a self-closing spring on the door. Doors in schools and other workplaces often haveglass panels so that you can see if someone is standing outside the door before you open it towards them. Theglass is toughened so that you can't cut yourself if you push on the glass section. Doors often have self-clos-ing mechanisms to prevent them slamming suddenly and as part of fire safety.

Ask the pupils to work in groups and identify other hazards around the school – for example in the gym, or hall,the laboratories, on the playing fields. What steps have been taken to control the risks?

To help pupils understand how to assess risk.

Ask the pupils to carry out a risk assessment in another familiarenvironment, for example their bedroom or kitchen at home,the garden, local park or playground.

Next time you are planning to take pupils off site, share the riskassessment process with them. What hazards do they thinkthey will face, what will be the risks. Which risks are severe?Which are trivial? Which risks should they pay most attentionto? What can they suggest to help to control the risks?

Encourage the pupils use the risk assessment process in otheraspects of PSHE such as drug education or sex and relationshipseducation.

What other hazards have the pupils identified? What stepshave been taken to control the risks? Do they have any othersuggestions for controlling these risks?

Pupils have been learning about the risk assessment process.This involves:

• Recognising hazards (possible sources of harm)• Assessing the risk (possible consequences and how likely

they are to occur)• Suggesting actions to control risk to self and others in a

familiar environment

Follow up activity:

Intended learning outcomes:

Aim:

Review and reflection:

Lesson plan: Safety and risk educationRisk assessment activity for pupils aged 9 - 13 years

SAFETY Education Summer 2007 9

Congress

Improving safety deliveryJo Stagg reports on highlights from theRoSPA National Road Safety Congress

A study into improving thedelivery of road safety educa-tion was presented by JohnWicks and Carry Stephensonfrom the MVA Consultancy.

During the research, roadsafety officers were surveyedabout the factors influencingthe delivery of road safety ed-ucation, training and publicity(RSETP) and how its profilecould be raised.

Primary and secondaryheadteachers and teacherswere surveyed about the ef-fectiveness of current RSETPand how its impact could beincreased.

The study, which also in-cluded a literature review,case study interviews, and aplanned stakeholder work-shop, aimed to identify howroad safety officers andteachers could best work to-gether to maximise the deliv-ery of high quality road safe-ty education and to identifyexamples of good practice.

The findings of the roadsafety officer survey includ-ed: • The school environment is

the main area of work • Work with children and

young people is the largestproportion of work

• School travel plans and ini-tiatives, such as walk toschool week and in-schoolcycle training, are the mainactivities

• Other road safety educa-tion is given less attention.

A frustration at the short-term nature of many roadsafety appointments and lim-ited opportunities for careerprogression were also report-ed. There was a sense of in-trinsic satisfaction with work,based on the results beingachieved, rather than extrin-sic satisfaction, based on pay,training or recognition.

The survey responses fromprimary school headteachersrevealed that road safety edu-cation was ranked as the sec-ond most important of fiveaspects of PSHE (healthy eat-

ing, sex and relationships ed-ucation, road safety educa-tion, positive environmentaleducation, and drugs educa-tion), with healthy eatingbeing the most important.

Among secondary heads,road safety education fell tofourth in the rankings.

Other responses from theschool surveys included: • In primary schools, class

teachers are most activelyinvolved with the deliveryof road safety education,along with RSOs, but insecondary schools it is de-livered mostly by PSHE co-ordinators

• Primary schools reported

good support and opportu-nities to work with policeand RSOs, but there wasless evidence of externalsupport from local authori-ties for secondary schools

• Primary school teachersperceive they lack personalskills for the delivery ofroad safety education, butlack of time and resourcesare seen as the main barri-ers to more effective deliv-ery in secondary schools.

Among the issues arisingfrom the study was an agree-ment between RSOs andteachers that there needs tobe more guidance and direc-tion from central and localgovernment and improvedcommunication channels be-tween all practitioners.

The study’s final report isdue out in the spring.

Pete Zanzottera, senior con-sultant with Steer DaviesGleave, gave delegates anoverview of Cycling England’snew Bikeability scheme.

With pilot schemes launchedin September, he said 3,000children had so far receivedtraining. A national launchwas due in March and the aimwas that 300,000 peoplewould receive training in

2008/09, with a vision for2012 that every child couldaccess Bikeability.

Bikeability sets a nationalstandard for adults and chil-dren, and incorporates threelevels of training: • Learning to control • Making easy trips • Cycling where you want.

For more information, seewww.bikeability.org.uk

Cycle training

New messageA powerful new road safetyeducation toolbox for sec-ondary schools was pre-sented by Kate Wheaton, ed-ucation adviser at RoadSafety Scotland.

Crash Magnets consists ofinteractive activities, videoclips, interviews with youngpeople, games and an on-lineforum, all supported by strik-ing graphics.

To engage young people intheir mid-teens, Ms Wheatonsaid road safety educationmust be relevant to theirworld, reflecting presentstyles and trends. And, shesaid, it was important that itwas embedded within thewider curriculum, having par-ticular links to health, citizen-ship, peer education, futureeducation and personal and

social development. Peer pressure is one of the

key issues addressed by thetoolbox.

“A young person not wear-ing a seatbelt is not an act ofdefiance,” said Ms Wheaton.“It is a way of fitting in – it isas simple as that.”

Other topics covered byCrash Magnets includepedestrian and driver issueslinked with distraction, speedand speed limits and drinkand drug driving.

An evaluation by Heriot-Watt University found thatCrash Magnets lowered in-tentions to speed in the fu-ture and lowered the accept-ability of not wearing seat-belts, speeding, drink-driv-ing, and attitudes towardsdriving violations in general.

10 SAFETY Education Summer 2007

Congress

How youngsters see risk

The impact of KerbcraftResearchers from the Uni-versity of the West ofEngland outlined the impactof a pilot network of practicalroad safety training schemes.

The pilot network, consist-ing of 103 schemes in localauthorities in England and 12in Scotland, is based on theKerbcraft model and hasbeen funded by the Depart-ment for Transport and theScottish Executive.

Courses last for 12-16weeks and use 30-minuteroadside sessions to teachthree key pedestrian skills tofive-to-seven-year-olds:• Finding a safe place to cross• Crossing safely between

parked cars• Crossing safely at junctions.

Parents or local volunteersare trained to deliver skillstraining to the children in anon-didactic style, with chil-

dren discussing strategiesand issues between them-selves and with the trainers.

Kirstie Whelan, senior re-search fellow, presented thefindings of an evaluationstudy which compared thepedestrian skills of 118 chil-dren who had undergone thetraining with those of a con-trol group of 212 childrenwho had not taken part inKerbcraft sessions.

Trained children showed asignificant improvement inchoosing safe routes forcrossing the road and signifi-cantly outperformed the con-trol group at each stage of theparked car strategy and eachstage of the junction strategy.

Prof Elizabeth Towner, pro-fessor of child health, sum-marised the impact of thepilot network on school com-munities and volunteers.

Schools which took part inthe evaluation study reporteda range of benefits includingto children’s learning and be-haviour and relationshipswith parents, and recognisedthat Kerbcraft was foundedon sound educational theory.

Volunteering as a Kerbcrafttrainer also brought with it arange of benefits, includingsocial contacts, more confi-dence and employment op-portunities.

Congress delegates alsoheard about local successesfrom pedestrian trainingschemes run by Blackburnwith Darwen BoroughCouncil, which used studentsfrom local colleges as volun-teers, and Lancashire CountyCouncil, which has trained44,937 children to datethrough the Right Startscheme.

Road safety from a youngperson’s perspective was ad-dressed by three presenta-tions.

Dr Jenny McWhirter, RoSPA’s

safety and risk education ad-viser, introduced the benefitsof “draw and write” projectsto assess where children arein their thinking about safety

issues, rather than where ex-perts are.

Such exercises, she said,could provide informationabout the range of road-relat-

ed hazards which childrenand young people are awareof, the age at which theirawareness peaks, how gen-der influences their learningneeds and gaps in their un-derstanding.

Jackie Green, professoremerita at Leeds Metro-politan University, also spokeabout draw and write re-search. Her study was de-signed to discover the roleplayed by parents in roadsafety education at differentstages of their child’s devel-opment.

The research showed whatparents could do to help. Thisincluded:• Be a better and more con-

sistent role model• Know the current advice/

rules being given to chil-dren and young people byschools and road safety of-ficers

• Give proper explanations• Provide opportunities to

practise skills in judgingthe best place to cross andsafe distances

• Check on their child’s be-haviour

• Continue into the teenageyears, but be relevant.

“Parents are genuinely con-cerned about their child’ssafety, but could do better,”said Prof Green.

Dr Richard Kimberlee, seniorresearch fellow at theUniversity of the West ofEngland, presented the StreetsAhead on Safety Project.

The project in EastBirmingham involved youngpeople as service users anddecision-makers to improveroad safety. It included meet-ings between young peopleand road safety engineersand environmental auditsbeing conducted in the localarea.

Among the outcomes, saidDr Kimberlee, were greateropportunities for contact be-tween schools and parentsand an encouragement to engineers to “get on with it”.

Tom Mullarkey, RoSPA chief executive with Tracey Prescott on the Silk Group stand

SAFETY Education Summer 2007 11

News extra

The Gateshead HousingCompany and its partnershave launched a new schemeto remind youngsters how tostay safe when improvementsto homes are going on.

The 'Safe as Houses' cam-paign has been launched asover £1m a week of improve-ments are carried out at hun-dreds of homes across theborough by the housing com-pany.

As well as telling childrenand their parents about thedangers around a home thatis being modernised, thecampaign also reminds themto keep away from buildingsites and depots, which canbe a potentially fatal area foryoung people to be in.

The simple, seven-pointplan to keep youngsters safe is:• Keep your distance from

building sites and scaffold-ing.

• When work is going onstick to playing fields andplaygrounds.

• Keep children and petsaway from work areas.

• Watch your step insideyour home. Beware ofthings you could trip onand take care in workareas.

• Keep children away fromdangerous tools andmachinery.

• Watch out for overheaddangers outside yourhome.

• Be sure to follow anyinstructions you are given.

Bill Fullen, chief executiveof the housing company,which is set to spend up to£330m on improving thou-sands of local homes by 2010,hopes parents spell out thedangers of playing near build-ing works to their children.

He said: We want to remindparents and guardians to re-mind young people about thedangers of playing nearbuilding sites or where work

is going on."Of course that applies to

everyone in the household aswell - so please take care andhopefully as well as having abetter home to live in, we canall be safe as houses too."

Parents can also ask for acopy of the Health and SafetyExecutive's 'Stay Safe' inter-active comic and the compa-ny's Major Works Compactfrom their on-site tenant liai-son assistant when work iscarried out.

It is also hoped to also runa series of site safety ses-sions in local schools andcommunity centres in the fu-ture as part of the campaign.

Frank Haslam Milan Ltd,Gateshead Council andMorrison Facilities ServicesLtd, who are carrying out re-pairs and improvement workacross the borough for thehousing company, have alsobacked the Safe as Housescampaign.

I Safe as housesin Gateshead

Stoneleigh Park is a wideopen space, famous as theshowground for the RoyalAgricultural Show. As youdrive into the imposing en-trance the right hand track di-rects coach loads of teachersand children towards the an-nual Crucial Crew event oper-ated over a fortnight everyautumn.

This is the story of onegroup’s experience duringthe day.

Waiting to receive eachnew batch of guests for theday was red-coated JaneLees, road safety officer andjoint coordinator of the wholescheme.

During the day each groupof Years 5 or 6 children expe-rienced nine areas of risk andreceived extensive training inthe basic resuscitation tech-nique and recovery position

members of the ambulanceservice. Their teachers ac-companied them, carrying aclipboard to collect the scoresawarded by each scenariopresenter.

A firefighter establishedwith his group that they knewabout the dangers of fire andthe importance of raising thealarm. Making a 999 call wasa vital skill which one of thegroup practised in the hear-ing of the others. The wholegroup were involved in send-ing the correct informationabout the location of the fire.While smoke from the inflat-able house swirled aroundthem, the call was made suc-cessfully.

Two TNT representativesshowed the group the enor-

mous size of a truck and lo-cated four blind spots wherethe driver would not beaware of a bicycle or a personaround the vehicle. Remind-ers about the importance ofcycle helmets were includedin this session; most childrenwore them most of the time (but “why not every time?”,they began to think). Duringthe day there was evidencethat people had rememberedabout the four blind spots fora truck driver from an eventsome years ago: safety mes-sages delivered with a realtruck can be easily recalled.

Safety Street was an effec-tive way to maintain pupils’attention on information fromtrading standards. Havingthrown a ball through thehole in a painted brick wall,

I Crucial Crew get messageBy Colin Morris

Continued over

12 SAFETY Education Summer 2007

News extra

the ball landed in one of fiveboxes marked electricalgoods, fireworks, food, age-related sales or cycling. Eachball in the box brought a chal-lenging question for the indi-vidual who threw it, or for thewhole group to consider:• What is the age-limit for

buying fireworks? (18) • What is wrong with this

television? (faulty wiring inthe plug)Two gas engineers ex-

plained the dangers of gasonce it has escaped in thehome and demonstrated dra-matically with a burst bal-loon, the likely consequencesof switching on a light in suchcircumstances. The groupdiscovered how to switch offthe gas supply and one ofthem knew about ventilatingthe rooms to dispel the gas.

A community police officerasked the group to wait on apretext and then watchedfrom cover to see the out-come of a stranger approach-ing. The person with a terrierwas a plain-clothes police-of-ficer but as far as the child-ren were concerned he was astranger to them. Theirteacher was disappointed tofind that five of her pupilswent with the man (to helphim scare rabbits !!) in anoth-er part of the park but at leastthere were four children whodecided this was not a goodidea. Discussion with thegroup drew out reasons whysome went with a strangerand equally why some ofthem stayed.

Why did the road safety of-ficer have a ventriloquist’sdummy sitting on a boosterseat? Why were childrenrolling eggs along an imagi-nary road? Recent legislationabout child car seats meansthat those under 12 and lessthan 135 cm tall should needa booster seat otherwise theirneck or other body partscould get caught and injuredwith a standard seatbelt. Thedummy’s neck could suffersafely to make this point.

An egg was analogous to a

human body, having a softshell containing 75 per centwater. So the children foundthat rolling a replica egg atspeed resulted in severe in-jury and a teacher doing thesame with a real egg showedthat even years of experienceas a driver brought a similartragic result.

With blue plastic tarpaulinsas water, the group learnedabout three categories of res-cue, should they find some-one in danger of drowning.

Having sought help viaphones and passing adults,they practised shouting/en-couraging advice, throwingand using a lifeline withoutgetting pulled in themselvesand lastly supplying a varietyof available buoyancy aids totheir conveniently strandedteacher.

Outside a converted elec-tricity sub-station, the group

was informed about the greatpower of electricity and its as-sociated dangers. This includ-ed telephoning the local sup-plier, should a ball, for exam-ple, become trapped inside asub-station.

Finally, the group identified10 hazards in a simulated liv-ing-room which would beparticularly dangerous foryounger children.

Three permanent centreshave registered a request toaccredit to the LASER schemeand one centre has returnedtheir stage one accreditationdocuments.

Annual event accreditationdocuments are complete andin the final read through before release in April, andco-ordinators have begunregistered their request to accredit.

The LASER web site is nowapproaching 1,000 visits amonth from 23 countries.Malta, Sweden, Korea andJapan are in direct contactwith the accreditation team.

The ‘schemes location’ areaof the site has recently beenupdated. If you know of anyevents which are not yet onthe site please contact

John Vallender jvallender

@rospa.com, or if it is moreconvenient use the designat-ed contact us link on thescheme location pages.

The 2007 season of annualevents has begun. JohnVallender will be using histime to visit at least one eventeach week. Thanks and appre-ciation go to Donna Abdy forarranging to meet at York‘Crucial Crew, Ian Feathersoneand Sue Yoxall for their wel-come at Wandsworth ‘JuniorCitizen’, and Annie Davey forher help at StaffordshireMoorlands ‘Crucial Crew’. Co-ordinators reading thisnote who wish John to visitthem please contact him on0121 248 2114.

Over the last few monthsJohn has been writing andtesting an automated ‘on lineassessment’.

The prototype assessmentis to be piloted with a numberof events later this season inCornwall. In addition to pro-viding evidence for use at alocal level the assessment isdesigned to report anony-mous results to a central col-lated database.

If all works well RoSPAwill be able to map, by geo-graphic location, levels of safe-ty knowledge and behaviourpre and post intervention. Co-ordinators and scenariomanagers will have accessto this data so they may bet-ter evaluate the impact oftheir safety interventions.Co-ordinators and agenciescan find out more about thispilot and the developmentplans for future on line as-sessments by contactingJohn.

I LASER centres sign up

I Crucial Crew get message

Pretty coloured liquids can be poisonous